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Frame and Form (Structure and Form) was born with the modest desire to promote and disseminate structural design culture [...]


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9 May, 2011

Finalists Footbridge 2011. TECHNICAL Category Short Spans

Once published the pedestrian bridges with best aesthetic quality, TECHNICAL categories begin with the bridges opened between 2008 and 2010 whose major span does not exceed 30 meters. For more information about the bridges you can click on their titles.

21 April, 2011

Finalists Footbridge 2011. Aesthetics Category: Medium Span

Continuing with the finalists of the prestigious Footbridge Awards, this article covers the proposals selected as the best footbridges opened between 2008 and 2010 whose major span is between 30 and 75 meters. (best footbridges up to 30 meters here)

20 April, 2011

Finalists Footbridge 2011. Aesthetics Category: Short Span

This week, the shortlist has been announced for the finalists of the prestigious Footbridge Awards to be awarded next 6 th of July during the Footbridge 2011 event in Wroclaw, Poland.

This article reviews the proposals selected as the best pedestrian bridges opened to public between 2008 and 2010 whose major span does not exceed 30 meters.

21 March, 2011

Rolling Bridge – Heatherwick Studio

Following the interesting work of the designer Thomas Heatherwick (here previous article on his Glass Bridge), today we present the Rolling Bridge. A inspiring proposal for a movable small urban bridge.

13 March, 2011

Glass Bridge – Heatherwick Studio

We do not usually speak of conceptual structures that have only entity in a world without economic, gravitational or social constraints. Today we break (or not) our policy to bring you this bridge-idea from Heatherwick Studio. This London based studio is characterised by a strong multidisciplinary design capable of creating original and carefully studied ideas. Whenever one of their designs manages to be constructed (I promise more stuff) the resemblance to the original 3D renderings is amazing. This represents a formal and structural study that is serious and realistic inside their unlimited creativity.

9 March, 2011

Holmenkollen, the new jump

The famous Alpine resort of Holmenkollen, presents its new ski jump platform. The team led by architects JDS and engineering Norconsult have created the new Norwegian monument to winter sports, a cantilever tower hovering 69 meters.

27 February, 2011

Quadror, joint, structure, design, inspiration…

A few days ago, my good friend Gustavo showed me this piece from The New York Times. Although at first I could not understand how this design works, something hooked me from the first gesture. The author defines as QuaDror “a new structural join for spaceframes that unfolds manifold design initiatives and can adapt to various conditions and configurations”. An ambitious definition that encouraged me even more to try to understand its functioning and potential.

20 February, 2011

Palmira Chapel – Felix Candela

The chapel of Palmyra in Cuernavaca (Mexico) is one of the most famous works of Felix Candela constructor. Built in 1959 , this building sums up perfectly Candela's work, highlighting the creativity, simplicity and structural knowledge of the author.

14 February, 2011

VAL CENIS Bridge. Prime Tensairity in service

To complete (for the moment) the series of structures based on system Tensairity, Today we present the first and only bridge in operation based on this structural typology. This is the unique bridge for skiers of the French Alpine resort of Val Cenis in Lanslebourg.

7 February, 2011

Space Frames and Pantadome System

The space frame truss is architects' and engineers' favourite type of structure to build great roofs because of its lightness, transparency, and especially because of its great ability to adapt itself to free and complex forms.

Space frame is an efficient structure because all its bars work in tension or compression. When tensioned, the use of the material can be optimal, and under compression, the use of a tubular profile is very effective against buckling since the circular hollow section has a relationship radius of gyration/weight.

1 February, 2011

Bridging Mars

In the course of a research project about an innovative deployable truss structure at the Technische Universität München, an animated short was produced in 2009. Presented as a fictitious journey on Mars, the movie demonstrates the application of a deployable bridge structure along with its carrier on its mission bridging Mars.

27 January, 2011

How to Build a Tensairity Bridge

Continuing the previous post, here we present the conceptual design and construction work of a pedestrian bridge supported by a tensairity structure. In 2008, collaboration between the prestigious ETH Zurich and Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research or Empa resulted in the realization of the structure 10 meter span structure protagonist of this article.

16 January, 2011

Featured 2010

2010 has been a great year for Frame and Form, thanks to you we have increased 300% our readers traffic! To celebrate, introduce the summary of the most interesting and special 2010, classifying them according to number of visits,Voting and Favorites team Frame and Form.

25 December, 2010

Happy 2011

23 November, 2010

Collection of Variable Depth Footbridges. Part 2/2

This article continues and closes this small series of variable depth bridges. Last week, the first article featured the recent work of the engineering firmAnta.

In an interesting Interview with Mario Guisasola (Spanish), he comments “I have no idea what kind of bridges we will build in the future. I hope that in ten years we'll be designing bridges different from the current ones. Anyway, as I said before, I think I still have much to learn about the variable section beams”.